Wednesday, August 8, 2012

Don't let the sound of your own weasels drive you crazy.

"The Corner" in Winslow, Arizona. Photographed 08/07/2012.

When he was three years old, my son John would join his older sisters in singing every popular or obscure song they knew. Both girls were in honors choruses and choirs and musical productions from an early age and John was drawn in by the joy and exuberance of their musicality.

At the time, the Eagles must have recently reissued their first hit, Jackson Browne and Glenn Frey's Take It Easy. Perhaps the girls discovered my LP of the Eagles' Greatest Hits or Jackson Browne's album For Everyman. I just remember the song's pervasive presence in our home.

From the outset, little John was drawn in by the song's rollicking beat, and he easily learned the lyrics... except for one line which he sang with such delight and abandon that we lacked the heart to correct:

"Don't let the sound of your own weasels drive you crazy."

Little John must have unwittingly known a truth even at that early age: Sometimes the sound of your own weasels can indeed drive you crazy. We come to see our weasels as reality and we want to alter it, to fix it.

As I proceed along this figurative and literal path, I have learned that the "me" to which I object, and which I wish to transform, does not even exist. That it isn't at all real.

What is "real?" As John Lennon wrote, "Love is Real."

More on that as I stumble along. In the meantime, however, don't let the sound of your own weasels drive you crazy.